Elderly couple files police complaint against tenants

The Engineers, who stay in an ancestral bungalow on Warden Road, say their tenants assaulted their security guard on September 3, but police yet to file an FIR

An elderly Parsi couple, who lives in a bungalow on Warden Road, has accused their tenants of assaulting and abusing their security guard, but the police are yet to register an FIR despite them lodging a complaint.

The Engineer family, who resides on the ground floor of Gulshan Villa, an ancestral two-storey building in Gamdevi, claimed that the tenants had been occupying the property for around 25 years and had been causing them distress for quite some time now.

Noshir Engineer (87), the house owner who is suffering from cancer, said, “We live on the ground floor while the first and second floors have been let out.“

On September 3, he said, CCTV footage showed their first-floor tenants, the Subramanians, ringing their doorbell innumerable times at around 4.30 am. “We have had several run-ins with them in the past and thus we have a female security guard.Since the doorbell woke all of us, we asked the guard to go up and enquire what was wrong,“ said Engineer’s younger son Sharoukh, 54.

What followed after was caught in a CCTV camera and was enough to scar the Engineers’ relationship with their tenants.

When the female guard went up to enquire what was wrong, the ten that CCTV camera had captured the entire episode.

His wife Mahrukh (45) said, “She was lucky that she didn’t fall and come rolling down the stairs. However, when she went back to enquire why they rangs our doorbell, she was slapped, abused and manhandled again by Subramanian’s elder son, Abhinav.“

By this time, the Engineers had called up the police control room, their complaint said.

“The police came and took all of us to Gamdevi police station. But to our dismay, they lodged a non-cognisable complaint against our tenants even though what they did was a very serious offence,” Sharoukh said.

The Engineers claimed that they got their guard to undergo a medical check-up. “The doctors said that her left ear, where she was hit, suffered some damages. The way she was assaulted, her modesty was outraged too. Police need to take stronger action against the Subramanians,” Sharoukh said.

The Engineers have written letters to the Commissioner of Police, along with the other authorities concerned. Their lawyer, Satish Maneshinde, said, “If this can happen in a city like Mumbai, I can’t imagine what must be the situation elsewhere. An old Parsi couple is being harassed at this age. Authorities need to take cognizance.“

The Subramaniams weren’t available to comment. This newspaper called up and sent a number of messages to Kumar Subramaniam, the head of the family, but he didn’t respond. DCP Zone II, Dnyaneshwar Chavan, said, “I am not aware of the incident. However, I will look into it and ask Gamdevi senior inspector to investigate the case.“